I'm still not sure about the Atom, but it looks like an interesting design. It also has HDMI out of the box. I don't see anything on the price though. ZDNet is guessing around the $500 mark. I would rather have one of the new Mac minis at that price, but it still looks like an interesting product. I bet it does well if the reviews are good.

1- Why they went with the single-core Atom 230 instead of the dual core Atom 330, I have no idea.

2- VGA out? What's the point of having a box that can push 1080p, but then be limited to analog output? I guess just to save a few $. Hopefully, they will have options.

This is only the first to be slated for release, so I expect we'll see some better offerings that use the Ion platform by the end of the year. Once you get up into the $500+ range, however, it's hard to compete with the Mac Mini as far as performance goes on a small box like this.